21. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)22. Barbara Stanwyckin Ball of
Fire (1941)
23. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)24. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)25. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)26. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)27. Anne Baxter in All about Eve (1950)
28. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)29. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)30. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
31. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
32. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)33. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)34. Katharine Hepburn in Guess
who’s coming to dinner (1967)35. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)36. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)37. Teresa Wright in The
Pride of the Yankees (1942) 38. Jennifer Jonesin Love Letters
(1945)39. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next
Year (1978)40. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
41. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
42. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)43. Loretta Young in Come to the
Stable (1949) 44. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
45. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)46. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)47. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)48. Ruth Chatterton in Madame X (1928-29)48. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Ruth Chatterton as Jacqueline Floriot in Madame X

The second
Best Actress race in Oscar history is so infamous for its infamous winner that
the other nominees basically seem to have disappeared. Okay, I’ll admit that movies
from 1929 are in general not too much talked about anymore…what I mean is that
the focus on Mary Pickford’s “bad” performance is so strong that rarely anyone
questions the qualities of her co-nominees. As you can see from my ranking, I don’t
consider Mary Pickford the worst nominee ever – and I don’t even consider her
the worst nominee that year.

Ruth
Chatterton is certainly an interesting case. Everything about her acting style
in movies screamed “RESPECT THE THESPIAN!”. Hers was the kind of acting that,
especially in the early years of the talkies, must have seemed like a
revelation to many – she used her voice truly like an instrument, playing high
and low notes often in the same sentence or slowly losing an accent over the
course of a story. Yes, even without knowing too much about her, you just feel
that you are supposed to admire her dedication and I think that if it had not
been for the star power of Mary Pickford and Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton
probably would have won an Oscar for one of her two nominated performances.

Okay,
getting that out of the way – wow, has time not been kind to her. What I
imagine must have seemed impressive in 1929 appears sometimes almost to be a
parody. I get that Mary Pickford’s work is not exactly a timeless product of
elegance and grace but at least she possessed the star power to overcome her
acting style. Ruth Chatterton unfortunately lacks this and everything she can
offer is this fake aura of “importance” that ruins her work almost from start
to finish. Ruth Chatterton’s work appears to be the product of a clash of the
worst tendencies of melodramatic acting choices with an early “method” that
existed only for its own sake and not in relation to the story or the
character. Her vocal work seems to be the best example for this – at the
beginning, she talks with a high-pitched voice that is often uncomfortable to
listen to and then, during her life’s journey, lowers it down to an almost James
Earl Jones-level. But this does not mean that this symbolizes her aging process
because at the end, she is back to that high-pitched voice, so the question is –
which is her real voice and who in the world changes it so drastically all the
time?

Most of
all, Ruth Chatterton’s acting style suffers from an extreme tendency for
theatrical posing combined with total lack of energy and life – but to be fair,
not in all moments. She has some moments (of which I will talk about later)
where she suddenly finds the right tone and voice and which prevented her from the
overall last position in my ranking. Ruther Chatterton has lower lows than
Diana Wynyard but she has some heights and at least manages to be the driving
force of the story while Diana Wynyard also has an outdated acting style but
never manages to become at least interesting or engaging.

Ruth Chatterton’s
first big scene in Madame X might display some of the worst acting ever by a
Best Actress nominee – after Jacqueline has left her husband for another man,
she is an outcast in his life and that of her little son whom she only watches occasionally
when he is out for a walk with his nanny. When she hears that he is seriously
ill, she visits her former husband’s home and begs him to let her see her son –
a plea which he denies. In this scene, Ruth Chatterton is not able to display a single
genuine emotion. She moves in front of the camera for the right angle, she
delivers lines as if she is reading them for a script and acts her worries and
desperation in such a theatrical manner that would not even have been allowed
on the stage. When she learns that her husband told their son that she is dead,
she gasps noticeable, turns her head to him, whispers dramatically “You told
him…”, shakes her head and then whispers “that?” I’m not sure if it so bad it’s
funny or just plain bad but I don’t think that any other categories are
possible. She also speaks with a too affected voice, pronouncing words such as “cruel”
as “cuelle” and when she is finally turned away, she dramatically walks to a
wall, puts her arm dramatically against it, puts her head dramatically against
her arm and cries dramatically. Of course, Madame X is a horrible movie with a
horrible script but this single scene is almost an insult to professional movie
acting.

Strangely
enough, what might be her best scene in the movie follows right after. After
she is denied to see her son, Jacqueline becomes a world-travelling prostitute
(because what else can one do?). In her next scene, she apparently enjoys a
high position in some exotic country and is courted by a young sailor. In this
moment, she lowered her voice to what might even be Ruth Chatterton’s real voice
and appears strangely relaxed, even a bit modern in her amused way of rejecting
the advances of this young man (even though she’s doing too much winking with
her eyes) and this is one of those moments where I get the feeling that Ruth
Chatterton might have been an intriguing screen presence if she had just stuck
to a more natural acting style which she apparently was capable of. Alas…

She then becomes
more theatrical again as she displays how Jacqueline sinks lower and lower,
turning into a miserable drunk where she again has some moments that manage to
captivate even if she fails to create any excitement about her acting. Her most
famous scene is probably when she shoots a man who knows about her past to save
the reputation of her husband and her son (of course she does) – she displays
the anger at him and her despair for once in a rather believable manner and the
way her body shakes after she committed the murder again feels surprisingly
modern. Another highlight (in a positive meaning) is her scene in court when the lawyer who defends her turns
out to be her son (of course he does) and she tells her story to the court but
always insisting that she will not say any names. Her voice is again rather
high-pitched but she finally manages to be moving without overwhelming you with
her acting style.

So, this is
a performance that really reaches lows that most likely few others in this
category have seen but there were enough interesting moments to prevent her
from being dead-last in this ranking. But only by a hair…

And as previously voted on, the next winning performance to be discussed will be:

21. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)22. Barbara Stanwyckin Ball of
Fire (1941)
23. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)24. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)25. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)26. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)27. Anne Baxter in All about Eve (1950)
28. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)29. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)30. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
31. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)
32. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)33. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)34. Katharine Hepburn in Guess
who’s coming to dinner (1967)35. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)36. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)37. Teresa Wright in The
Pride of the Yankees (1942) 38. Jennifer Jonesin Love Letters
(1945)39. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next
Year (1978)40. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
41. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)
42. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)43. Loretta Young in Come to the
Stable (1949) 44. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
45. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)46. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)47. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)48. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Anne Baxter as Eve Harrington in All about Eve

Few performances
in the Best Actress category are as difficult to evaluate for me as Anne Baxter’s
turn as an aspiring but also scheming actress in All about Eve. It’s hard to
deny that the part itself is a true showcase, written to perfection like almost
everything else in this classic Best Picture winner. And Anne Baxter does find various
great moments in her performance – but as my ranking shows, I am not completely
convinced that her approach was overall successful or that she was even the right
actress for the part.

I do have
to say what I find very interesting that, despite my reservations about Anne
Baxter’s performance, there is never a moment in All about Eve where I think
that she is actually hurting the movie or threatens to destroy its flow.
Instead, she completely integrates herself into the outstanding ensemble and
contributes to the success of the story – but looking back on it, I think this
has mostly to do with the fact that the remaining actors possess the necessary aliveness
to compensate for her often stoic acting choices. I get that Eve is an outsider,
even when she is welcomed into this group of theatre folks – but I still don’t think
that Anne Baxter got everything out of the role that was possible. And I think
that it is Anne Baxter’s sometimes lacking acting style that is responsible for
one of the most discussed questions around this movie: leading or supporting?
To this day, movie fans debate if Anne Baxter’s choice to compete in the Best
Actress category is the reason that Bette Davis lost the award for her iconic
role as Margo Channing, thus paving the way for Judy Holliday’s win for Born
Yesterday. Personally, I agree with Anne Baxter – Eve is a leading role. But
somehow, Anne Baxter’s performance doesn’t feel the same. What I mean is that
both Eve and Margo were given the same chances by screenwriter Joseph L.
Mankiewicz – both are given an intriguing arc, both are dominating the story
and both are given material that can easily lead to performances that are
proclaimed “all-time great”. But only Bette Davis fulfilled this. Her performance
is so dominating, so effortless and so memorable that she made Margo Channing
naturally the center of attention. All about Eve became all about Margo, as
also the later musical version Applause demonstrated. But as I said, this was a
result of casting – if an actress who could have held her own against Bette
Davis had been cast as Eve, then history might have been very different but
Anne Baxter simply too much disappears next to Bette Davis, even with a role
that, on paper, has the same potential.

Maybe the
part of Eve actually had even more potential than Margo – the apparently innocent and devoted
fan who turns out to be a scheming manipulator, trying to take everything away
from her idol (her parts, her friends, her lover) is a dream role that demands
an actress to do a complete turnaround in her performance and constantly act on
different levels for different targets. And I won’t deny that Anne Baxter
possessed the instinct for this – she knows when to appear innocent, when to
crack an evil smile and when to completely let go of her carefully constructed
protection. But still, the outcome does not convince me. First of all, what I
think, is that Anne Baxter quite simply was too mature for the role of Eve. I realize
that she was only 26 years old when she played the role but something about her
was too “grown-up”. She simply lacks that quality that would make Margo
Channing say that she feels an urge to protect her, she never really comes
across as that devoted, wide-eyed fan who only lives for her idol. I’ve been
unsuccessfully trying to come up with an actress who might have been more suited
for the part – I just think that an actress with more spark and youth could
have portrayed the naivety of the character better. Because of her maturity,
Anne Baxter, at least for me, destroys her entrance completely – she feels much
too secure when talking to Karen (does anyone really think that it took all her
courage?) and her scene in the dressing room also feels too calculated. I get
that Eve is acting at this point but she unfortunately doesn’t do it
convincingly. Barbara Bates later gives a much more believable performance of
the same character as Phoebe at the end of the movie – I am not saying that Barbara
Bates would have been a better Eve but I can imagine that she would have given
her opening scenes the needed charm and plausibility.

This acting
style of Anne Baxter in my opinion also ruins the effect when she finally turns
out to be something completely different. Anne Baxter never seems to hide her
true intentions. I know that by now we are all aware of Eve’s true plans but
watching the movie, there is no reason to immediately assume just how far Eve
went to get to that award show. The beginning of the movie is intriguing and
makes you wonder just what happened between these characters and if Eve had
been a more likeable and sympathetic character, the question would have been
going on for much longer (even when she tries to seduce Bill, she does it with such a clearly evil agenda in mind that it's surprising she would think that anyone would fall for it). But Anne Baxter’s acting style and Bette Davis’s performance
don’t make it very difficult to side with Margo right away and begin to expect
the worst.

But as I
said, the acting of Anne Baxter does not diminish the success of All about Eve –
I just think the movie and the role could have succeeded on a more intriguing
level. Other scenes when Eve is fooling (or trying to) those around her also
suffer from her melodramatic acting style, from convincing Karen to make her
Margo’s new understudy to lying to Addison about what happened in the ladies’
room. But I would expect that a woman whose acting style is called “fire and
music” would be more convincing in her schemes. Anne Baxter mostly puts on a
melodramatic whisper and turns her head away from her scene partners to look
into the open space which makes it impossible to imagine that she can seriously
rival Bette Davis’s Margo on the stage – or off.

This was a
lot of negative talk so far which could pose the question why Anne Baxter is
then not lower on my list. Well, first of all, as I said, despite her acting
choices she does not harm the movie but still fits into it and still manages to
make her journey captivating. But most of all, Anne Baxter succeeds when Eve
finally drops her niceties and shows her true self. She is absolutely mesmerizing
in the scene with Celeste Holm in the ladies’ room and later when she is defeated
by Addison in her hotel room. Again, I wish her approach in these scenes would
have been a bit deeper (just how true is her love for the theatre? Is it only
about awards and fame? Or about acting, too? Just what is her true personality
in the end anyway?) but it works to bring her performance full circle.

So, there
remains a certain frustration as the role itself certainly had the potential to
become a 5 star performance but I think that Anne Baxter was not the right
actress to do so. Still, it’s a captivating performance that works within the structure
of the picture.

21. Elizabeth Taylor in Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)22. Barbara Stanwyckin Ball of
Fire (1941)
23. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)24. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)25. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)26. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
27. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)28. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)29. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
30. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)

31. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)32. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)33. Katharine Hepburn in Guess
who’s coming to dinner (1967)34. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)35. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)36. Teresa Wright in The
Pride of the Yankees (1942) 37. Jennifer Jonesin Love Letters
(1945)38. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next
Year (1978)39. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
40. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)

41. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)42. Loretta Young in Come to the
Stable (1949) 43. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
44. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)45. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)46. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)47. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Kate Winslet asClementine Kruczynski in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Finding a
position for Kate Winslet’s performance in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless
Mind was difficult for two reasons: One because my opinion on her performance
did not really change as you can see from her position (and somehow when you re-rank
something you always expect everything to turn out completely new) and second
because it’s a performance that is held in such high regard that it just
becomes extremely difficult to remain objective about it. It’s easy to judge
performances that won Oscars or critics awards because everyone has different
opinions – but Kate’s turn as Clementine is so many times mentioned as one of
the greatest performances of all time, one that constantly turns up on ‘All-time
best’ lists and one that is in general so beloved by everyone that you start
feeling guilty when you not join 100%.

As you can
see from her position, I do admire her work very much, however. I might not
join the “best of all time” group but it’s definitely a performance that sparkles
with creativity and originality. And this might even be the biggest achievement
of Kate Winslet: the “manic pixie dream girl” has by now become such a cliché that
it might appear to be just another addition to this group. But Kate Winslet
always makes it clear that her Clementine doesn’t behave out the way she does
out of the screenplay’s intentions but by her character’s own choosing. Her
work is as natural as it can get – considering the type of role she plays, certainly
not an easy task.

As I don’t
really have a lot of new things to say about this performance, I will keep this
review short. I just want to highlight what I admire most about this
performance is Kate Winslet’s ability to add so many different sides to her
character while never changing her nature. You can clearly see the unlikable
sides of Clementine in Joe’s early memories, how she can begin to repel
everyone around her with her behavior. But the further Joe goes back, the more
relaxed and sympathetic Clementine becomes even though she never actively tries
to win the audience’s or any other characters sympathies.

While I
would personally say that Jim Carrey gives the best performance of the movie, I
have no problems admiring Kate Winslet’s performance of a stereotype that rises
above any clichés and creates an unforgettable character (pun intended).

8/24/2017

I know I am very lazy with the blog again at the moment but I just don't find the time to post. However, I already ranked the next two performances and started with another one (I will post about that soon).

After the next three nominees, it is time again for me to rank a WINNER (every fifth performance I rank is a winner) - and you can decide which one! As I am going on holiday tomorrow, I am posting this now so I cank take the movie with me. :)

So, the first comment below this post gets to decide who's the next winner I will review. However, there are a few restrictions:

- You cannot pick an actress that is already included in this ranking (so no Meryl, Ingrid, Audrey etc)
- I am not too familiar yet with the recent winners, so these performances cannot be chose as well:

Natalie Portman, Black Swan

Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook

Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmon

Julianne Moore, Still Alice

Brie Larson, Room

Emma Stone, LaLaLand

- Also, I want to save some laughs and songs for last, so these performances are blocked as well:

21. Barbara Stanwyckin Ball of
Fire (1941)
22. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)23. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)24. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)25. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
26. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)27. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)28. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
29. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)30. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)31. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)32. Katharine Hepburn in Guess
who’s coming to dinner (1967)33. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)34. Jane Wyman in The Yearling (1946)35. Teresa Wright in The
Pride of the Yankees (1942) 36. Jennifer Jonesin Love Letters
(1945)37. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next
Year (1978)38. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
39. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)40. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)41. Loretta Young in Come to the
Stable (1949) 42. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
43. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)44. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)45. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)46. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Jane Wyman as Orry Baxter in The Yearling

My ranking of Jane Wyman’s first Oscar-nominated performance probably suggests that I like her less than I actually do. Her position my seem pretty low at the moment but this does not mean that I do not appreciate her work overall. In fact, her performance is one of the most confusing that is included in this ranking so far – because I think that Jane Wyman is actually the best thing about her movie. Well, this can easily be explained by saying that The Yearling is then clearly not a very good movie. After all, I often praise performances for being the best aspect of their picture because it happens quite often that you can find a tour de force in a movie that doesn’t seem worth it – from Meryl Streep in Sophie’s Choice to Charlize Theron in Monster, many pictures don’t have much to offer besides the performance at its center. But in the case of The Yearling, this is actually not true – even though a movie about a little boy and its fawn sounds like cinematic poison to me, the finished product is actually a rather harmless and sometimes even engaging movie with beautiful images and a central child performance that is as confusing to me as the work of Jane Wyman. One the one hand, the dramatic scenes of the boy at the end are truly laughable but on the other hand he shows such dedication and earnestness in his work that I end up actually liking him and caring about him. So, it seems that Jane Wyman is the best part of a rather good movie and yet I still don’t seem to truly admire her work. Let me try to explain…

The first thing that always catches my attention about Jane Wyman’s work is how it completely defies everything you would expect in a movie such as this. The first image you see of her is standing in front of her house, calling out for her son who is spending time in the woods, playing with some animals. It’s the kind of instruction that makes you think about the story of two loving parents and their little boy but we soon learn that this is only half the truth. Because Jane Wyman’s Orry is the complete opposite of the usual movie mothers of these days – she is neither kind nor loving nor understanding and instead keeps a stern, unloving face for almost the entire movie, always talking to her son in a bitter tone and showing no signs of maternal affection. This alone, in my opinion, is already the major reason why she is the best aspect of the movie simply because everything about her is so unexpected and there is something strangely engaging about her characterization that makes me want to find out more about her.

But: at the same time I feel that the reason why Jane Wyman is for me the best part of her movie is what her character represents instead of her actual performance. This also leads me to my major criticism: while I think that her character is the most interesting part of her movie, I don’t think that her work really fits into the movie. Even when a certain performance exceeds the quality of its movie (like the most recent example of Joanne Woodward in The Three Faces of Eve), the performance still serves the movie and exists inside it – the movie might be not worth it, but it still creates the surroundings for the performance to come to life. In the case of Jane Wyman, I think that this does not happen.

Director Clarence Brown is mainly remembered today for two movies that put children and animals at their center – The Yearling and National Velvet. And both movies also feature a mother and a father who shape the character of the child with their own personalities. And both movies also feature a mother who is rather stern and not very emotional. In the case of National Velvet, the mother was played by Anne Revere who was an expert for playing understanding and supportive mothers and won an Oscar for her efforts. But while both mothers were not the overly emotional type, Anne Revere’s mother was still different from Jane Wyman’s creation because there was no doubt that Anne Revere’s Mrs. Brown was very loving and very fond of her daughter and simply expressed these emotions in a different way. In that way, she still served the purpose of the movie and added to its overall sentiment.

Of course, it doesn’t make really sense to compare the performances of Anne Revere and Jane Wyman because even though there might be some similarities, they are still completely different people. Mrs. Brown is supposed to be loving and understanding while Orry Baxter is neither of these things – or rather, chose to be neither of these things. The Yearling explains early on that Orry used to be the kind of typical movie mother, loving and full of joy, but after the death of her three previous children, she couldn’t suffer anymore and chose to block all emotions and to not build any further close connections to anyone. In this aspect, Jane Wyman’s work is very intriguing and she does many things right. But there are two ways to look at this performance – how Jane Wyman acts her character and how Jane Wyman acts her character within the movie.

The first aspect is the interesting one. Mostly because there is nothing about Jane Wyman’s work that asks either the audience or anyone else to like or to appreciate her. I fully appreciate the way she uses her voice and her body language to craft her part and how she is able, despite her limited screentime, to create a lasting impression. Mostly, she keeps her disapproving façade for most of the running time of the movie, ordering silence with a single look, berating her son for wanting a pet, showing her disappointment in her husband with a calm quietness or lashing out at him during a thunderstorm that ruins most of their crops with an angry “That’s right, find the good in it” when he tries to cheer them up. Only occasionally, she shows another side, mostly in regards to her hope that she will have her own well one day. And the script also offers her some scenes that show that she actually does care about her family but she keeps pushing these feelings away.

Yes, all these contradictions make Orry Baxter a very intriguing creation – but I think that this creation was wrong for the movie. Of course, Jane Wyman did not herself choose to play Orry Baxter this way as the character is supposed to be this stern and strict but I just wish that Jane Wyman had found more variations in her work. As it is, I could easily see Orry Baxter as a wonderful character in a movie about a young widow who is not interested in any more romance and finds herself unexpectedly courted by Gregory Peck, a widower with a young son – this kind of movie, you know. But I don’t think that her characterization works within The Yearling. And this brings me back to the beginning – as a standalone performance, Jane Wyman does provide the best moments of the story and hers is the character I want to know more about the most. But taken within the movie, I feel that her work feels too out-of-place and often even harms the story.

Most of all, I wish that Jane Wyman had found more layers in her character. She obviously offers the typical “see, she is actually not that bad” scenes and the end of the movie makes sure that we see another kind of Orry, one who can finally love her son, but Jane Wyman never finds these layers outside of specially written scenes. Most of the time, her anger and disapproval almost interrupt the movie. I don’t mean that Jane Wyman has to fit everything about her work to the sentiment of the story – but the problem is that everyone else does. I think therefore that the blame lies not entirely with her but also the other actors and the moviemakers around her. Nothing suggests that Orry fits in any way into her own family – Gregory Peck and Claude Jarman Jr. create a loving father-son relationship while Orry doesn’t create a relationship with anyone. This seems to be the point of the character but after 11 years of living with her son, I would expect some kind of growth and some kind of depth. As it is, Jane Wyman plays her role in a way that not only suggests that she doesn’t love her son but that she doesn’t really give a s**t about him, neither talking to him or anything else, opening a conversation already in a tone of voice that expresses the most dislike and disinterest. Therefore, I just don’t believe in the family shown on the screen. Most of all, Jane Wyman has zero chemistry with Gregory Peck and both seem to act in different movies – mostly because Jane Wyman possesses the same kind of disinterest she shows to her son in her relation to her husband as well. Scenes that show them alone together don’t feature any kind of believable marriage and I just can’t imagine a person like Ezra Baxter putting up with this kind of behavior for eleven years. Jane Wyman’s performance therefore works well within the guidelines of the script but she fails to establish a relationship to anything around her and I believe that many moments of her performance could have been played with more depth and understanding. The comic tone of a scene when Jody and Ezra return from the city with bruises on their faces totally escapes her work and she is rather confusing when she refuses to greet people in the city by insisting that they won’t remember her – it’s another scene that is played far too sullen and could have used a little self-doubt and hesitation instead. And the aforementioned scene when Orry shouts at her husband “That’s right, find the good in it” is another example where I find the character both interesting and irritating – and again it seems too out-of-pace for Jane Wyman to set Orry up against everyone and everything, making her and outsider in her own family.

Of course, I don’t want to judge Jane Wyman negatively for playing a part as written but I think that all of her scenes would have allowed for a more varied character. Orry Baxter could have been a much more interesting and colorful person, possessing many shades and sides – as it is, she is still an intriguing presence but I don’t think that The Yearling is really the movie to highlight this enough. Anne Revere was certainly too old to play the mother in this case but I still think that her personality and ability to portray a whole life with single glances and to find a three-dimensional personality behind a stern mask would have resulted in the kind of performance that combined the strict nature of Orry with the sentiment of the story and the acting of her co-stars. Jane Wyman unfortunately only solved one aspect of this task.

21. Barbara Stanwyckin Ball of
Fire (1941)
22. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)23. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)24. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)25. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
26. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)27. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)28. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
29. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)30. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)31. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)32. Katharine Hepburn in Guess
who’s coming to dinner (1967)33. Marsha Mason in Chapter Two (1979)34. Teresa Wright in The
Pride of the Yankees (1942) 35. Jennifer Jonesin Love Letters
(1945)36. Ellen Burstyn in Same Time, Next
Year (1978)37. Susan Hayward in My Foolish Heart (1949)
38. Vanessa Redgrave in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971)39. Diane Keaton in Marvin's Room (1996)40. Loretta Young in Come to the
Stable (1949) 41. Mary Pickford in Coquette (1928-29)
42. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)43. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)44. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)45. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Joanne Woodward as Eve White / Eve Black / Jane in The Three Faces of Eve

In 1957, American movie audiences had the chance to see an unusual story about a shy, repressed young woman who suffers from bad headaches, loss of memory and constant fatigue. Nobody has an explanation for what is happening to her but soon we discover that she possesses multiple personalities. More and more often, her shy personality is suppressed by an sexually aggressive personality whose arrival is usually accompanied by some strange, supposedly “erotic” music. This “evil” personality is slowly getting stronger and hopes to one day take over the whole body of this woman and she is also aware of everything that happens to the shy personality while she in return knows nothing of this other personality. The young woman seeks the help of a psychiatrist who under hypnosis discovers that there is a third personality – a sophisticated and intelligent woman who possesses neither the shyness or the social inabilities of the first personality nor the malice and promiscuity of the second. Finally, we learn of a horrible event in this young woman’s past that led to these multiple personalities but in the end, we can be happy because the third personality prevails and enables this young woman to finally lead a better life. This definitely sounds like an extremely juicy role with lots of possibilities for awards but any hopes the actress in case might have had were soon destroyed: because Lizzy with Eleanor Parker in the central part opened at the beginning of 1957 to mostly neutral reviews and was soon overshadowed by the almost completely identical story in The Three Faces of Eve and Joanne Woodward’s award-winning performance.

Actually, there is no specific reason for me to bring up Lizzy at the beginning of this review. I don’t intend to make any comparisons between the performances by Eleanor Parker and Joanne Woodward nor between the movies themselves. But I just find it absolutely fascinating that two female-driven movies about multiple personalities with basically the same story and same execution were released in such a short period of time. According to various sources, the producers of Lizzy (among them an uncredited Kirk Douglas how had co-starred with Eleanor Parker in The Detective Story) either sued the producers of The Three Faces of Eve to make them release their movie later that year or came to an mutual agreement – probably not the smartest move since the second movie was much fresher in the minds of critics and Oscar voters when it was time to fill out their ballots. But looking at both movies, it’s also clear that The Three Faces of Eve is a much more ‘Oscar friendly’ production than Lizzy – it’s clearly a studio project, it tells the whole story in a much more explanatory way, with a stronger focus on the performance at its center. But now let’s drop this Lizzy business and get to Joanne Woodward’s work.

The Three Faces of Eve is in my humble opinion one of the worst movies to feature an Oscar-winning performance. I don’t know if the story must already have seemed dated in 1957 but I almost can’t imagine otherwise – the whole aspect of switching personalities by simply saying “May I speak to Eve White now?”, hypnosis by simply saying “5, 4, 3, 2, 1” and an uninteresting supporting cast create an overall ridiculous story that only makes you roll your eyes constantly. And another confession right away: Joanne Woodward is one of those acclaimed American actresses that I personally don’t get – like Jane Fonda or Ellen Burstyn, she simply does never inspire me to watch another performance or develop any kind of admiration.

But – looking at Joanne Woodward’s position in my ranking, it’s clear that I did not let my opinion on her as an actress influence my judgement of her work (at least, I hope so). Most of all, I have to say Joanne Woodward’s performance is one of the most impressive cases of a performer overcoming all the obstacles in her way that I have ever seen. I am not saying that is one of the greatest performances of all time (the awfulness of her movie does put limits on her work) but considering the mess around her, I can’t help but admire the dedication in Joanne Woodward’s work since it is almost a small miracle that she came out of the whole thing untouched. I roll my eyes at the script, I roll my eyes at the direction, I roll my eyes at the score, I roll my eyes at the supporting cast – but I never roll my eyes at Joanne Woodward. The movie is full of moments that should make me laugh at her character and her performance but she is so serious in her work that I am always won over in the end.

I think the biggest problem with The Three Faces of Eve is that it never appears to be a real movie – rather, it comes across as a ‘show reel’ for Joanne Woodward. If seems as if the studio had a new actress, didn’t know what to do with her and simply decided to let her do everything. The whole movie screams “Look! She can be shy! She can be sad! She can be sexy! She can be smart! She can laugh! She can scream! She can cry!” And to make sure that every aspect of possible entertainment is covered, there is even a scene of Eve Black singing in a night club so that the movie makers can also shout “And she can sing, too!”.

So, with all of this going against her, I really have to compliment Joanne Woodward for still making it a success. Because even if the story holds her back many times (more on this later), the technical aspects of her work are flawless. She is able to clearly communicate the differences between her three characters only with her voice and her facial work. Mostly sitting in a chair while switching between Eve White, Eve Black and Jane, she crafts three clearly distinguishable personalities. The viewer is always aware which character appears – Joanne Woodward can be mousy and teary-eyed as Eve White, self-assured and playful as Eve Black and mature and intelligent as Jane. No denying, it is Oscar bait on the highest level but it just works. Even when Eve Black has a teary moment of fear at the end of the movie, these tears are still different from the usual helplessness of Eve White. And most of all, Joanne Woodward succeeds in establishing each of these personalities as real characters – despite all the ACTING, I never have the feeling that I am just watching an actress show off but that I am seeing three different women caught in the same body. All those moments of switching personalities, of acting flirty one second and then repressed in the next should not work – but they do. Only at one moment do I actually feel embarrassed for Joanne Woodward – when she has to perform the song in the nightclub as her dancing feels so calculated and rehearsed, almost like a parody.

The script of The Three Faces of Eve presents Joanne Woodward with two main challenges. The first is to make it all believable – which she does. The second is the limitations of her characters – and this poses an unsolvable problem for Joanne Woodward. Because as expectedly as she crafts those three personalities on the outside – none of them exists on the inside. There is no depth, no inner life, no true emotion to any of her characters. This puts Joanne Woodward in the curious position of having three characters to play – but there is hardly any character at all. Eve White, Eve Black and Jane are all created with different exteriors and even though it is clear that they are all separate persons, none of them possesses a true character. This is not Joanne Woodward’s fault but it does limit her work. Her performance is exciting and impressive but it never surprises and it’s hard to establish a close connection to any of her characters – neither Eve White nor Eva Black nor Jane are truly interesting as separate characters and I wouldn’t want to watch a movie that focuses on any of them exclusively. Only the combination of these personalities in one body makes them interesting – but again with limitations. Eve White’s insecurity and shy behavior can be a bit much at times. Eve Black appears a rather juicy personality at first but in the end she is simply some kind of lovable party girl (even though at the beginning the movie has a scene where Eva Black apparently tries to kill her daughter – something never brought up again later). And Jane is maybe the solution to all problems (as Eve’s psychiatrist says, the worst problem with Eve Black and Eve White is that neither can function as a wife or mother – because what else is there to do for a woman?), she enters the movie too late to make a true impression: one scene that tried to introduce her personality has her sitting in a car with her new boyfriend (I wonder how exactly she managed to get a boyfriend? Did the three women suddenly arrange some kind of bodysharing agreement?) and lamenting that she can’t marry him due to her illness. But the scene is rather comical as Jane seems to have found the only man in the world who accepts “I suffer from multiple personalities” as an excuse for not going to third base.

But even with the limitations of the script, there are moments when Joanne Woodward manages to at least hint at the women behind the surface. She hints at some hidden pain in Eve White when she tells her doctor that she recently lost her unborn child and when her husband later tells her in a strict way to close a door and come closer to him, her facial work hints at years of domestic abuse and violence (and when Eve Black later finds herself in the same position, Joanne Woodward again shows the difference between these two women even if both are feeling the same at this moment). I also like the way Jane hesitates before she talks to the doctor for the first time and Joanne Woodward again finds some touching moments at the end that manage to go a bit deeper when Eve White hopes that Jane will be the one to survive in the end and how she fears to never see her child again and when Eve Black begins to feel that something is not right and says “Goodbye“ for the last time.

So, it’s a performance that almost seems impossible to work and it’s easy to imagine countless actresses giving a maybe competent but also laughable or irritating performance. But Joanne Woodward got everything out of this role as humanly possible and made an unforgettable impression.

21. Julie Christie in Away from Her (2007)22. Shelley Winters in A Place
in the Sun (1951)23. Audrey Hepburn in Wait until Dark (1967)24. Ingrid Bergman in The
Bells of St. Mary’s (1945)
25. Judi Dench in Mrs. Brown (1997)26. Jane Fonda in Coming Home (1978)27. Greer Garson in Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939)
28. Doris Day in Pillow Talk (1959)29. Meryl Streep in One True Thing (1998)30. Deborah Kerr in From Here to Eternity (1953)

41. Sissy Spacek in The River (1984)42. Shirley MacLaine in The Turning Point (1977)43. Irene Dunne in Cimarron (1930-1931)44. Diana Wynyard in Cavalcade (1932-1933)Susan Sarandon as Louise Sawyer in Thelma & Louise

Ranking Susan Sarandon’s performance in Thelma & Louise has been both fun and exhausting. Fun because it had been ages since I had watched that movie and it’s always a thrill to take a closer look at one of the few truly iconic performances that the Oscars recognized over the years. Exhausting because this iconic status often makes it difficult to approach the performance with an open mind and fresh eyes. As always, it took me a while to decide but now I feel quite comfortable with the position.

Re-watching Thelma & Louise for the first time in God knows how many years, it surprised me how well the central plot of this friendship between two women held up and how amazingly both Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon sell this story, navigating the picture between buddy drama, road trip movie, adventure story, comedy and satire. The trailer for Thelma & Louise (officially one of the worst trailers I ever saw) tried to promote the movie as a feel-good comedy, jumping between Thelma’s criminal activities and her husband’s puzzled reactions – but as awful as the trailer may be, watching it made me realize how fantastic Thelma & Louise is when it simply focuses on Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis and how quickly it can fall apart when it doesn’t. The movie lives from its two leading ladies because they add the necessary realism to the proceedings that most of the male actors cannot. Don’t get me wrong, this is no “I am an angry male because Thelma & Louise represents men as bad people” rambling – I get that Thelma’s husband, the truck driver and Harlan are more noteworthy for what they stand instead of what they are but it’s still frustrating that they are played and presented in such easy-to-dislike ways (seriously, that angry rant of the truck driver after his truck is blown up is so over-the-top that it takes me out of the whole story for a couple of minutes). The characters are certainly necessary to show exactly why Thelma and Louise are doing what they are doing and why their friendship is so important – but they don’t improve the movie itself. But in the end, this does not matter because a) I only judge Susan’s performance and not the movie and b) I only watched the scenes between Susan and Geena anyway and always skip all the rest.

So, let’s come to Susan’s performance. The main reason why the story of Thelma and Louise is so iconic and popular today is most likely the famous ending shot but beyond that it’s because their names have become synonyms for an unbreakable bound between two women fighting against a world of men. But what I most appreciate about the work of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon is the fact that they do not play a broader theme but instead focus on what’s happening to these two specific women at this specific moment. Many of the male characters might represent a wider topic but Thelma and Louise do not. This helps both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis to play all the tasks they are given, the drama, the romance, the comedy, the adventure and the horror. And if Thelma & Louise is iconic for its presentation of a great friendship, this only comes down to both leading actresses (by the way, if the movie came out today – who would go supporting?): from the first moment on, they share such a genuine chemistry on the screen, their joking and laughing always natural, every discussion authentically in the moment. Both actresses display a believable affection towards each other without which the movie could not succeed.

It’s interesting to think about the timing of Thelma & Louise in both Geena Davis’ and Susan Sarandon’s career – for Susan Sarandon, it was an Oscar-comeback and the begin of her ‘four nominations in five years’ period that ended with a win for Dead Man Walking a couple of years later. For Geena Davis, it was a nod that showed that the Academy did the right thing by giving her an upset Oscar a few years earlier. So, in 1991, Geena Davis might have had the edge when it comes to ‘Oscar veteran’ but Susan Sarandon edged her out in the end as she is much more remembered as an Oscar caliber actress today while Geena Davis’ win is often forgotten nowadays.

So far, I have mostly focused on both Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis and it truly seems to be impossible to talk about them separately. But I’ll try as I think, despite the importance of their relationship, there is still a lot that each actress contributes to the movie by herself. Geena Davis was given the bigger arc by the screenplay and also the wider variety of emotions – she goes from suppressed housewife to crime-loving runaway and also sometimes works a comic-relief. Susan Sarandon’s Louise is a more developed person right from the start and she also won’t change in the same way but Susan Sarandon’s work is responsible for successfully setting the tone and for balancing the personalities of both characters. Susan Sarandon possesses a very mature and responsible aura on the screen and she uses it so immediately establish Louise as the more grounded, earthy and leading personality – she can be as much fun as Louise but she is more experienced, has seen and endured more and is the one who is used to make the decisions. There is something flawless about Susan Sarandon’s way of establishing this personality, laughing at Thelma’s news that she didn’t ask her husband to go on vacation, being surprised by her behavior in the bar, enjoying a good time while still not letting herself go, always on guard and in control of the situation.

With her focus on Louise’s strong side, Susan Sarandon makes the relationship between Thelma and Louise work and she also becomes the driving force of the movie as well as the audience's point of reference in many moments. But beyond this, Susan Sarandon also expertly displays the different layers of Louise’s personality – the breakdown on the phone when she talks to Jimmy and begins to realize the proportions of her problems, her fury when she rescues Thelma from Harlan and already hints to the fact that Louise is not only outraged for Thelma’s sake but also due to her own experiences in the past, the tenderness in her scenes with Jimmy in the hotel and her calls with the police all deepen her portrayal in different direction and create a complete, authentic person. And if the friendship between Thelma and Louise feels so deep and true, Susan Sarandon can also be complimented here – there are many moments in the movie when you would expect Louise to hid Thelma over the head and go on alone due to her often careless behavior, but Susan Sarandon shows just how strong their connection is and always makes their ongoing journey believable.

So, while the story and the final shots of Thelma & Louise may have given the movie its iconic status, the performances of Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis are responsible for giving it life and creating the basis for its reputation. And as Louise, Susan Sarandon used her screen personality with wonderful results and crafted an unforgettable character that stays with you long after the final freeze frame.